Welcome to the Stratosphere
by nimmieamee
Summary: In which June becomes an accessory to a crime and proves that she knows jack about superheroes, because, let's be real, everything she knows she learned from People magazine.


June Colburn was twenty-five, five-foot-two, blonde, still a practicing Christian thanks to the First Korean Baptist Church of Lower Manhattan, and formerly of Indiana. She had a winsome-if-forgettable all-American charm.

And she was not an Avengers superfan. Definitely not. Not by any means. Oh, they were indispensable when it came to defending the city of New York from aliens; sure. As a newly-minted New Yorker, she had to appreciate that.

But you couldn't get too wrapped up in flashy hero worship. Life was about the small kindnesses, really. The good stuff you could do yourself, no superheroics necessary, for those people you encountered on a day-to-day basis. Because you existed down here, on earth. And the Avengers existed somewhere in the stratosphere, fearsomely battling all that was evil and treacherous. So you couldn't get too wrapped up in the Avengers; they operated on a different plane. Even the ones with really gorgeous arms like Hawkeye.

Actually, probably especially the ones with really gorgeous arms like Hawkeye.

They were a mighty team of gods and super soldiers – far beyond her ken. They were butt-kicking, perfect redheads. They were billionaires with dazzlingly charming smiles and incredibly high IQs. They were totally husband-material scientists with maybe one small anger problem that June could totally help the Hulk work on if only he just—

Ok. No, that was crazy. And maybe she did like them. A little. But even she had to admit that the Hulk and Tony Stark were just not proper daydream material. What would Pastor Jin say if she knew? And Black Widow seemed a little like those girls who were mean to you at school and got away with it, all perfect hair and subterfuge – Chloe girls, really.

And who knew who Hawkeye really was, anyway? He probably wasn't even Christian (kind of a deal breaker), and Thor definitely wasn't; and, though Captain America probably was, and June had played at being Dr. Mrs. Captain America as a child, the fact was that according to People's latest expose the good Captain's first name was apparently Steve.

She'd sworn off Steves after her Steve had cheated on her with Chloe. No more Steves; no thanks.

So here she was. Down in the latte-fixing, resume-peddling, scraping-by world of the normal people, trying her hardest for small kindnesses every now and then. Just your average newly-minted New York girl. And the Avengers were up in the universe of good versus evil, of cosmic righteousness, of terror and teamwork and justice.

Until.

Until Hawkeye showed up to eat her lunch.

As breakfast.

June rubbed at her eyes and he winked at her. June retreated to the bathroom.

"Hawkeye," she said, and then, because she wasn't completely awake yet, "Hgfgghlf. Eating. My panini."

"He's still here?" said Chloe.

It was seven in the morning. Chloe was wearing something black and sparkly that plunged down to her navel. Her makeup was only slightly smudged. Her dark hair made a perfect partygirl halo – just mussed enough to show that she was definitely having a good time.

Having a good time right there in the bathroom. Gargling with a gin and tonic.

Chloe lived in an anesthetized world in which it was always two A.M., madness was forever excusable, and there was never a gin and tonic not lurking around the corner.

After a moment she stopped gargling and just started drinking.

"I made that panini for lunch today. That's my food. He's a hero. A hero is eating my hero," June said. "Eating my food."

"Well, he can't eat my food," Chloe said, rolling her eyes. "Mine is all vodka."

June went back to the kitchen.

Hawkeye's perfect arms waved frantically at Eli's window.

"This guy is watching you," he told June seriously. "He's some kind of creep."

"Mainly I watch Chloe," Eli said.

"Ok. I'm shooting you in about three seconds if you don't go away," Hawkeye said. He said it very ruggedly, June thought. June got very caught up in admiring his stalwart grimace, and his wholesome chivalry, and the curve of his biceps as he aimed his bow at Eli's face.

She almost forgot to explain that, in Chloe world, Eli's creepyness was perfectly permissible.

But then she remembered to.

Hawkeye's arms put the bow down.

Us Weekly kept spotting Hawkeye's arms in places like parks and freeways and at the national mall. Us Weekly generously pasted entire pages with photos of his arms. June had maybe, kind-of, sort-of lovingly devoted a scrapbook to those arms.

"Yeah, Chloe's totally fine with this," Eli was saying.

Hawkeye's arms made impossibly sexy whirlwinds, right there in June's kitchen, as he told Eli off. He was maybe a bit more sarcastic than necessary towards Eli, but June could tell that heartfelt devotion to Chloe motivated it. And who wasn't sarcastic in New York?

June made him another Panini. They got to talking. He'd been born in Iowa. He was a non-practicing Catholic.

June decided that was good enough.

* * *

Of course Chloe dumped him.

Chloe was working six days a year now. Three days as a glorified escort to U.N. diplomats. Three days painting the town red with S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives.

"June, I'm exhausted," she said. "I have no time to myself anymore. None. I can't possibly date. Beyond the fact that I never date, dating takes energy that I just don't have."

She paused and kicked the mailbox one more time, for good measure. The bottom door popped open. A flood of envelopes fell out.

It was three A.M. They were in some back alley in Midtown. Chloe had a kind of ultraviolet flashlight thingy she'd stolen from Hawkeye. It cut through the envelopes to reveal money hidden inside the flaps of letters.

"Oh my god, so stupid," Chloe said, "These are probably from really old people. Only old people send money through the mail. This is exactly why I hate old people."

"You don't have the and energy to devote to an honest, sweet, perfect, heroic pair of arms – person. A perfect, heroic person. But you have time and energy to devote to committing a Federal crime?"

"June, people suck," said Chloe, "People are puny ants. Who has time for people, really?"

She pocketed the fifty-dollar bill someone named Ethel Lowenstein had probably intended for a grandson living in Seattle.

"What would Hawkeye say if he knew you were stealing grannies' money at three in the morning?" June said, in far too shrill a voice for this time of night.

"That you're an accessory?" Chloe said.

June was the one holding the crowbar.

"You should be ashamed of yourself, June," said Chloe, "And you a Korean."

* * *

The crowbar thing produced a spiritual crisis. June tried to unload her guilt onto Pastor Jin, but all Pastor Jin said was to not forget the collection plate.

"When God gives you a crowbar, June," Pastor Jin said, "Sometimes you must find a mailbox. First Corinthians or something."

"No it isn't," June said.

It really, really wasn't. June was a normal person, a three in the afternoon instead of three a.m. person, a small kindnesses person, a fifteen years of Christian camp person. That meant that she knew her Bible.

"It would say that if crowbars and mailboxes had existed back then," said Pastor Jin. "Have some imagination, June. Like your friend the incredibly tall prostitute."

"She isn't a—" June began. Then she amended her sentence. Because she liked Chloe, really. She liked Chloe probably more than was healthy. But Chloe was a bad person. A bad person who'd dumped Hawkeye.

That was like vomiting on the stars.

"She steals granny money," June said.

"You know who loved prostitutes?" said Pastor Jin. There was a knowing twinkle in her eye.

"Don't say Jesus," said June.

"Jesus," said Pastor Jin. "Jesus did. Don't forget His collection plate."

* * *

"Please don't tell me you're going to start dating Tony Stark now," said June.

"Been there, done that," said Chloe, between shots. "Twice. I know, I know. I went back for seconds. I'm embarrassed, too."

"Seconds?" said June, "You went back on your scorched earth policy for him? Oh, right. You make exceptions for extreme wealth."

"Yes. But also to be fair, he was like a totally different person after he got kidnapped by Ottomans or whatever."

"You mean Afghans," said June. "No. Afghanis. I mean Afghanis."

"Some kind of furniture. Anyway, I took pity on him."

"You took pity on him," June said.

"The Ottomans shoved him in a corner, exploded a Chesterfield in his face, and made him build Barcaloungers for, like, a year," said Chloe. She waved a finger in the air to emphasize the point.

The crowd that usually accompanied Chloe from nightclub to nightclub (Maddie von Harcourt Brace, the local mess of a publishing heiress; Tea Lipton, who was either a drag queen or James Lipton's spoiled niece or both; several obscenely wealthy young men who were gay Japanese hipsters and therefore too cool to not hang out with; a chronic hyperventilator named Stefon who wouldn't take his hands out of his armpits; Seth Meyers; Seth Rogen; three Real Housewives; and James van der Beek) made sounds that ranged from sympathetic to impressed to appalled to vomiting.

"That wasn't what happened," said June.

June had a laminated copy of the Newsweek expose on the whole Tony Stark hostage crisis. She'd cried over it for three days. Then she'd led her campers in prayer for Tony Stark's recovery.

"Ok, doubting Thomas," said Chloe, "Go ahead and be one of those people that doesn't believe the word of Iron Man, our national hero—"

"No, I mean that that really wasn't what happened—"

"—just because he happens to be a trust fund drunk with an attitude problem and delusions of grandeur. And after all he went through, too. Whatever, June."

"Boo," said Chloe's crowd (seventy-five percent trust fund babies, eighty-five percent attitude problems, ninety-five percent delusions of grandeur, one-hundred percent drunks). "Boo!"

"God," said Chloe, "If you're not going to suck whiskey from my bellybutton tonight, June, then the least you could do is have a heart."

* * *

June went out on a date with Mark.

It was nice; it wasn't perfect. Midway through the date, Mister Negative and his goons attacked someone outside the coffee-shop where she and Mark both worked during their non-dating time, so they paused dinner to frantically check their co-workers' tweets.

Co-worker Ellen called co-worker Meg 'twifey.' That got old real fast.

So did co-worker Meg's constant demands that everyone re-tweet everything all the time ever.

Eventually June rushed Mark to the P.C. Richards near Union Square and, using a hypnotic self-confidence she'd borrowed from Chloe, commandeered a giant T.V. from which to watch live coverage. This was New York and stuff like this happened all the time, so the news anchor looked bored reporting that Mister Negative was holding one of the employees hostage but at least Spiderman was distracting him with quips and banter.

That Spiderman.

June wasn't his biggest fan. Maybe she had an inTouch spread on him. Maybe. But he'd never make People because of all that smart-aleck-y-ness.

People magazine had too much heart for that.

"Mister Negative," June sighed, "I've dated that guy. Cheated on me on my birthday."

"I made Jennifer cupcakes for her birthday once," said Mark, "She didn't like them. She said baking makes the oven dirty."

Onscreen, they could just make out Mister Negative using his super strength to demolish a halal lunch cart. He had someone in his photo-negative grasp and that someone was screaming but seemed otherwise unharmed. Spiderman had wrapped them in many layers of webbing, so if Mister Negative tossed them into the lunch cart they would probably just bounce right off.

That was really considerate of Spiderman. June decided that he deserved a People spread, even if he was a smart aleck.

"Who do you think Mister Negative is holding hostage?" Mark said, "Ellen? Or Meg? Or Chubby Dana? Or Meg?"

"I think you can just call her Dana," said June, "I hope it's not her; I think she has a heart condition."

"Yeah. It would be better if it were Meg. Meg's been stealing coffee stirrers," Mark said darkly.

Mark had been in New York so long that he measured out his life in stolen coffee stirrers. Not so for June.

Alright, so she lived in the real world. Not in the stratosphere with the Avengers. Not in Chloe's after-midnight party paradise. But she also lived for things like perfect arms, and derring-do escapes from Ottomans, and for dreams, you know? Sure, she had a job in a coffee shop. But she hung out with James van der Beek on a weekly basis. She'd made Hawkeye a Panini.

June wasn't quite ready to count the coffee stirrers. Not yet.

She gave Mark a chaste kiss and they agreed that it was fun, but not fantastic, you know? And you deserve fantastic, you really do. You're so nice. See you tomorrow.

Then June went home.

Chloe stumbled in roughly six hours later. She was handcuffed and there was lacy underwear hanging from her handbag. It couldn't possibly be her underwear because Chloe never wore any. There was a very real possibility that those weren't her handcuffs or her handbag, either. Chloe collapsed on the couch.

"Did you hear?" she said, "Some weirdo attacked that cartel you work for."

"Ha. Ha. It's a coffeeshop. It was Mister Negative."

"Alright, I am nowhere near drunk enough to listen to you blab on about your ex-boyfriends, June. Get me some vodka."

June rolled her eyes, but poured Chloe some vodka and then helped her drink it.

Handcuffs. Chloe needed the help.

"He took that chubs hostage," Chloe remarked.

"Dana."

"I was rooting for it to be that chubs," said Chloe, "And it was. This is probably the best day of her life."

This was an excessively rude train of conversation even for Chloe, so June let her fumble for her next glass of vodka herself. Mostly. For about two minutes. Then she gave up and did the pouring and the glass-holding and then went to go raid Chloe's stuff for lock picks, which Chloe almost certainly possessed.

When June got back to the living room Chubby Dana was giving NY1 an interview. She was flirting shamelessly with Pat Kiernan.

June was just starting a scrapbook on Pat Kiernan.

"Toooooooold you," said Chloe.

* * *

One morning, something woke June up, but she couldn't tell what it was. Like a weird…presence in the room. And maybe a giggle.

Weird. June went out to the living room and began making breakfast, and then three minutes later James showed up. This was early for James. He didn't have June's smoothie, either. But he did have Luther in tow, and also something of an attitude problem.

"Alright, where is she?" he said.

"Chloe?" said June.

"Of course not Chloe. Don't play games with me, June!"

"James does not appreciate games," Luther put in, "Not now. Not ever. And definitely not about the Black Widow."

James shot him an irritated look. He said, "I introduce the big name onto the scene, Luther. That's my line. Especially since I'm her biggest fan."

"I can't be a fan? I can't appreciate a strong woman who isn't afraid to call herself black?"

June wasn't even going to touch that. Nope. She retreated back into her room.

Where Chloe was having sex with someone on her bed.

In the early days of rooming with Chloe, she would have screamed or something. Now she just said, "You're changing the sheets, Chloe!" which was a dream likely to go unfulfilled, and relocated to the bathroom. She thought she heard Chloe say something through the door.

It might have been, "Oh my god, I knew we were good enough to sneak in here and start scissoring while she was still sleeping. Stealthy sex is the best."

* * *

I wrote this a while back, and I have to level with you: I still don't really know what it's about.


End file.
